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Comment by kerneloftruth | Hacker News Reader

Well done. My father was a realtor, and taught me early to distinguish between House and a Home -- the former is a physical thing, an investment, and is your Home while you're living in it; the latter is a precious concept, but a separate one. I'm grateful for him teaching that wisdom to me and my siblings when we were younger.

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We passed on buying several houses that would have been perfect for our (somewhat unconventional) needs, but would have been very hard to sell.

Instead, we bought a house that isn't perfect for our needs but will be easy to sell, because it has multiple in-demand features that don't really matter much to us, but matter to a large swath of buyers.

Perfect example is a childless couple who can buy a house in either a good or bad school district, with commensurate taxes and property values. They might think they're getting a steal by going with the house in the bad district... until it's their turn to sell the house.

Yes, it's the optimal strategy to exploit the idiotic game we play and get the best of the others trying to play it. Calling it "wisdom" seems a bit tasteless, though.

> distinguish between House and a Home -- the former is a physical thing, an investment

so a 'house' is 'someone else's Home that you happen to profit from heavily'?

Some people own their home, others rent it. Different situations suit different people.

spoken like a true 'property investor'? if you are trying to tell me that you don't recommend your closest friends and family to buy their own houses, you've really not convinced me.

not GP, but I'd recommend buying to some friends/family and renting to others. it depends a lot on how long they plan to live there, the local price-to-rent ratio, tolerance for risk, and desire to make significant modifications to the structure. but I'd err on the side of renting.

I very much recommend ownership over rent. However, purchase is sometimes not practical, out of reach, or just not desired. I've myself been in steep markets (California) where I rented for years while I saved up a down payment.

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